Chinnor took a major step towards securing promotion to South West 1 with a superb 21-6 win away to nearest rivals Chippenham on Saturday.

Star of the show was fly half Ben Thompson, who completed the full set while scoring a match-winning 16 points.

What makes Chinnor's achievement even more praiseworthy, is that they were missing five of their first-choice players skipper James Davies, Paul Hennessy, kicker Conor Begley, Gary Woodburn and James Walkinshaw.

Chippenham, playing with the breeze, went ahead with a penalty but Thompson equalised in kind four minutes later, leaving the score at 3-3 at the turn-round.

In the opening period of the second half, Thompson sent over a stunning drop goal, but a Chippenham penalty meant that the teams were still level with ten minutes to go.

Chinnor continued to go close and Chippenham tried desperately to break out of the stranglehold by running the ball, which cost them dear when winger Josh Jones intercepted to score unopposed. Although missing the conversion, Thompson dropped a huge goal to put Chinnor two scores ahead.

The same player intercepted another wayward pass to score under the posts and deservedly wrap up the game for Chinnor.

With more than ten senior players absent, Witney crashed 47-12 to stand on the brink of relegation.

They trailed by two tries before responding with some incisive rugby, rewarded by an electrifying midfield exchange involving Ben Dunmore and full back Luke Hollick, who scored under the post for Francis Grant to convert.

The game then swung dramatically to Marlow when they scored in quick succession just before and just after half-time.

Despite picking up another try from a Martin Lyall's pushover, Witney ran everything and simple passing errors were capitalised by Marlow, giving them a flattering scoreline.